500 Million is enough but 10 Million isn't?

So the lottery over here is up to 500 million apparently and this has got the pool running again at work. Besides buying my own ticket, I also chipped in to the pool. The normal reason I hear is "I would never forgive myself if I missed it by just two bucks." This makes me wonder... What is the cutoff? If a minute chance at a piece of 500 million is enough. Then what about 100 million? 50? 10?

Where is that cutoff point for you where you would "hate yourself" for not taking the chance?

Last edited by SirRobin; 2012-11-28 at 02:54 PM.

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I buy tickets if the pot is above $100 Million. It's not because I think $10 million is chump change. It's just that I don't want to find myself buying tickets too often.

I do believe there's a cutoff point where buying a ticket is has a positive net present value. After taxes I'm not sure where that is, but I think we're getting close to that at $500 million, assuming only a single winner.

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We sell lotto tickets where I work and yes people do get ridiculous when it starts getting over 200m. I remember Monday selling a guy $100 worth of tickets. At $2 a pop, he now has a 50 in 175,223,510 chance. Way better than 1 in that amount, right? Pfft....

There's no point buying lottery tickets if you comprehend the most basic probability calculus. If you additionally know how to value risk, it becomes even less valuable. The ticket is worth less than the money you buy it for, from an objective point of view.

The only reason to buy one would be for entertainment value, but I personally can't see the entertainment value. Maybe if you're buying it together with friends.

I can see the fun in sports betting though if you're going to watch the game. Makes it even more entertaining.

Never buy tickets. I bet on football games sometimes thats as far as I go. Not the same thing, but kind of related.

The nerve is called the "nerve of awareness". You cant dissect it. Its a current that runs up the center of your spine. I dont know if any of you have sat down, crossed your legs, smoked DMT, and watch what happens... but what happens to me is this big thing goes RRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWW! up my spine and flashes in my brain... well apparently thats whats going to happen if I do this stuff...

Where is "I would not buy lottery tickets no matter how high is the prize" option?

Don't get me wrong, but we all here play mmorpg. We KNOW what's random is. Even with ridiculously high drop chance like 10-15% it can take you 20 and more pools to get the item. With 1% chance you can never see the item even once in your life.

But when the chance is 1 out of 100 million, it would NEVER EVER happen. There is no reason to even waste your time by taking the tickets for free.

I get 1 ticket a week. I do it since I know my odds are virtually zero but not absolutely zero and I won't really notice $2 less a week but I will notice a couple (hundred) million extra.

And even if you had $2 million in the bank after you paid taxes. At 4% interest that would still net you $80,000 a year in pure interest which would still allow you to live better than at least 75% of the nation without ever even touching the 2 million you got in there to earn it. Sure, its value would go down over time due to inflation but by the time it really hit you that hard, you house, vehicle and all your stuff would be paid off anyways and your cost of living would be pretty low so long as you weren't stupid with what you chose to buy.

Let alone if you invested it in something that could REALLY make money.

I never play the lottery, but my girlfriend occasionally buys the odd ticket. Even if you get £10 from a £2 ticket, that is pretty nice and covers some fuel cost for the week. It isn't as if the £2 is going to good use, and while we will spend more then £10 on tickets before we get it back, who cares. Loose change ...

I buy tickets if the pot is above $100 Million. It's not because I think $10 million is chump change. It's just that I don't want to find myself buying tickets too often.

I do believe there's a cutoff point where buying a ticket is has a positive net present value. After taxes I'm not sure where that is, but I think we're getting close to that at $500 million, assuming only a single winner.

I 100% concur with the underlined part. When it gets to be in the 9 figures, I'll drop a couple of bucks. Not, that only 20 million is not worth my time either, but I don't want to be dropping $5-10 per week just to dream big.

It's estimated at 500M, it'll be higher than that come the drawing tonight. For one winner that number is the annuity payment, most just pick the lump cash option which is alway about 60ish percent of the number quoted, then the taxes... I one guy won it he'd walk, post taxes with probably in the 230M range.

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Most of us are living off of 50-70k a year and just making it.
With a jackpot of 3 million, you can buy a nice house, a nice new car, clear any debt and pay off all your bills for the next year and still have almost 2 million left over. Drop the 1.5 in a stable savings account and will never have to work again unless you want something extra (like another car).

50k is more than enough to live on if you factor in that you will NOT be spenting 250 a month on gas, 200 a month on lunch at work, hunderds in overdraft/late fees, no bills to worry about for the first year, car(s) fully paid off, and peace of mind.

With that being said, if 2 dollars has a chance to bring me peace for the rest of my life, i will take that chance.

Just making it? No wonder people want ever increasing wages if they think 50k per year is "just getting by."

Depends where you live. My real estate taxes alone cost over 10k a year and I don't exactly live in a palace. My wife and I (combined) make slightly over 140k a year and we aren't exactly living the high life. Comfortable and able to bank a few thousand per month, but not exactly extravagance personified.

Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.
You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.
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Depends where you live. My real estate taxes alone cost over 10k a year and I don't exactly live in a palace.

So true. It's important to talk about income in terms of quality of life or expendable income. $80k/year might be really great money if you live in Detroit but it qualifies for the attainable housing subsidies where I live. The inverse is true too: a waitress in manhattan that makes $100k/year doesn't necessarily have any more financial security than somebody making $45k in Boulder.

WRT. Lottery tickets. The reason to purchase a ticket isn't to win money and retire - it's a losing investment strategy. The value of a ticket is that it gives just enough realism to day-dreams of wealth that you can enjoy them more. Fanticising about not having debt or buying a flashy car is better when there's a path to that dream -- even if it's fantastically rare. Kids can dream of making it big as a NBA star or whatever, adults have realized that not all of us get to be rock stars or CEOs so we need new ways to root those daydreams in reality. A $5 lottery ticket (or whatever they cost) that makes it possible to daydream for 20 minutes is cheaper entertainment than buying a movie. For people who make the argument "I'd never forgive myself if I missed buying a pool at work and they won" then it's also piece of mind.

The way to take advantage of that daydream power is easy:

Buy a ticket January first.

Wait for the draw: but don't check the numbers

Scan the newspapers to see if the prize had any winning tickets

You may have to buy it a couple of times but eventually you'll have a ticket for a lottery that was won by at least one person. If you never check what the winning numbers were then for all you know: you've got the winning ticket. You can now root your dreams in "when i cash that ticket from january" rather than "if I win this weekend." It doesn't help if you're the "buying in to avoid losing when your friends work" thinker but it is a strategy that works for people who just think "wouldn't it be awesome if..."

I don't buy lottery tickets because I've studied math but I can appreciate the psychology of people who play anyway.

Hehe - I've asked that question myself for years. Why is it that I only play on the big-jackpots and not the 10 million ones? Is 10 million somehow beneath my standards? :P

Ironically you'd probably have better chances of winning the 10 mill than the bigger ones... also a lot cheaper too. The reason Powerball is getting stupidly high is they've doubled the price of the tickets since sometime last year. 2 dollars for a Powerball ticket vs 1 for every other lottery.

Isn't it immature that you call him Donald "Dump"?
I agree, it's childish and stupid - and that's my point. it's meant as a deliberate mockery of his blatant disrespect via using "Crooked Hillary", and thus I can call him "Dump" since he dumps his campaign promises, dumps campaign managers, dumps his wives, wants to dump the first amendment, dumps common-sense war ethics and dumps the use of proper English in favor of a mongrel white-trash dialect.

My family drops in 5€ a week for pretty much only big lottery here in Finland, "Lotto". The prize pool is usually between 1-2 million and 7 million pot got huge advertising as "biggest lottery ever" here. about5€ a week makes it 20,089812931837.... a month and 240 something a year. Could that money be spent better? Most likely, yet seeing the "This week, we have 1( or 2) winners" always keeps the dream living